Your State of Mind is One of Your Most Priceless Assets

Of all the things that impact human performance, your state of mind is one of the most important. It’s something that I’ve spent quite a bit of time talking to my business partner Brian about. He goes through gyrations to make sure he’s at the top of his game on a daily basis. Because he works in sales, his performance is directly impacted by his state of mind. So he has a near zero tolerance policy for anything that will affect his state of mind.

Your state of mind is one of your most priceless assets, and you should do everything you can to protect and optimize it.

1. The Impact of Convenience

Personally, I hate shopping of any kind. I find the search for parking, waiting in lines, and everything else that is involved something that causes me nothing but anxiety and decision fatigue.

I partially blame this on an ex-girlfriend who liked to spend 3–4 hours looking at black patent leather peep toe heels at Bloomingdales that all looked exactly the same.

And all of this affects your state of mind and your ability to do deep work. What some people term “retail therapy” I view on par with “human torture.” But more than anything, what I’m trying to do is preserve a high-performance state of mind to do work that actually matters.

In an interview with Dan Martell, he told me that he hasn’t gone to a grocery store in years. This allows him to focus his energy on the companies he’s an investor in and enables him to spend time on meaningful activities. To the best of my knowledge, nobody in the history of the world has said: “I went to a black Friday sale and it was fulfilling and rewarding.” This year someone got shot at a Walmart over some towels.

A few months ago I finally got myself a TSA precheck membership. To not have to wait in line at all makes the entire experience of traveling much more pleasant. By getting to the gate without any of the craziness of airport security, I can begin deep work in a calm and collective state of mind even when I’m traveling.

2. Digital Distractions and Your State of Mind

I’ve written extensively in previous articles about how the role of distractions in our lives. All of the measures that I take to avoid distraction are about preserving my state of mind. That was one of the reasons I quit social media for 5 days. Digital distractions tend to make us scatterbrained. Whether it’s sitting down to write, giving a talk in front of a large audience or interviewing someone for the Unmistakable Creative, I want to be in a peak state of mind. And by limiting access to distractions I’m able to maintain that state.

3. Screens, Anxiety, Email, and More

We spend a significant amount of our day looking at screens.

At some point after you wake up, you look at your phone. Sometime after that, you turn on a television or computer. Eventually, you check email.

While many of these things are necessary parts of our day to day lives, when we don’t keep them in check they can derail us and have a negative impact on our state of mind.

Some time ago I heard Tim Ferriss say it’s not a good idea to check email in the evenings on the weekends. Sometimes what’s in your inbox is something that can’t be deal with until the next day or the next week. But because you decided to check email, and now you’ve got something to worry about you don’t sleep well or your weekend is shot to hell.

4. Environments and Your State of Mind

One of the major reasons to design an environment that is conducive to the person you want to become is because of how it impacts your state of mind.

When you get into a really clean car, it makes you feel better.

When you hang around positive uplifting people, it rubs off on you.

As our former podcast guest Jim Bunch once said to me “everything you see, hear, smell, taste and touch is an environment. And those environments are either adding energy or draining energy, increasing your focus or decreasing your focus.”

While many of the things that high performing, successful and wealthy people do appear to be luxuries, at their core they are designed to maintain an optimal state of mind. If you’re a billionaire whose hourly income is worth tens of thousands of dollars, it’s quite clear why you would go out of your to design environments for optimal performance, creativity, and state of mind. Even the slightest percentage increase in performance of any kind can have a significant impact on a long enough timeline.

I’m the author of Unmistakable: Why Only is Better Than Best (Available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble). Once a I month, I curate a list of book recommendations. Sign up here to receive the next one.

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